Are you asking about 2.5Gbe, and do you want to change over to pfSense or OpenDNS?
Are you asking about 2.5Gbe, and do you want to change over to pfSense or OpenDNS?
I have an old RT-AC3200 router right now. It feels too slow to me. I am looking at the GT-AX11000 instead because it is tri-band and supports wifi 6. Someone told me that if I plug my modem into the 2.5gbe port (my modem has one), it will stop bottlenecks even though my internet speed is only gigabit level. I might move to a place with fiber soon, so I need something better. Also, am I sure about setting up pfsense or opnsense? It looks cool but the cost scares me away a bit. I think I'll need a wifi 6 tri-band router, a switch that handles 2.5gbe connections to stop speed limits, and a powerful box to run the software. All those things add up to almost double my current budget compared to the GT-AX11000. Plus, Untangle has been provided by work and says it must be plugged into the router or it won't work properly. Is that true? For what I use my network for, family streams video from time to time, but when I'm working as a full-time engineer at home (WFH), I might download gigabytes of data every day.
Don't waste your money on a fancy wifi6e when you probably just need regular wifi6. Most people won't see real speed improvements with 802.11ac (wifi5) anyway because the radio bands are crowded and there are too many problems with them. I don't know exactly what bottlenecks you mean, but to get a fast 2.5g connection you need a router with at least two ports that support it: one for your internet and another to plug your PC into. Asus has some models like this but I can't remember which ones they are.
It depends on what you do with the PC. If you just want simple internet or NAT (that stops hackers trying to get in), most basic consumer routers handle that fine. They moved the NAT logic out of the main chip and put it into a special hardware part instead, so VPNs won't slow them down much even if your PC is big. But anything fancy like parental controls will stop the router from helping with speed and all traffic will have to go through your PC's CPU, which might be too slow for everything.
Basically, when you have a really fast connection over 500mbps, you should just let your router handle NAT stuff without any special tricks. You don't need a tri-band router (three radios) here; instead, buy two regular dual-band routers that cover both 2.4g and 5g bands. You are better off with those than trying to chase the fancy "e" on the wifi6e number just because it looks big.
Almost all fast wifi6e routers have three radios: one for 2.4g, one for 5g, and one for 6g (or gigahertz). Don't get fooled by the numbers; if you don't need a lot of speed, the extra features might not be worth it. Very fast internet mainly helps with big file downloads, but things like Netflix or playing games or even normal web surfing use very little data and will still work fine no matter how many radios your router has. For most people, 100mbps is already enough.
I have the same problem with a discount contract on a gigabit connection that expires soon. I am wondering if I should pay more per minute just to get faster downloads. Is saving five minutes every month really worth extra money? Also, what sites do you actually use at 2.5g speed? I still can't get full gigabit speeds for things like Steam even though my tests show the connection is fast. It seems like the game and the time of day affect things too; I haven't ever gotten more than 750mbps on most sites.
I thought that 11000 router was in the $500 range too. Routers with many ports are very pricey too. I'll stick with what you have. It is way more than most phones or computers support right now. Even though the new Wi-Fi standard looks fast, it won't be faster because the 5G radios don't have enough speed for all that data on them.
I don't even know if they have set the right rules for now. Some things here sound pretty dumb. They already had trouble making QAM1024 work unless you were sitting in the same room as them. Now they think they can go four times faster than that. I've also seen plans to use very wide bands on 6G radios, which will cause all the chaos we had with 5G bands before everyone fought over each other's spots. You could wait, but I guess it will take at least three or four years for device makers to put wifi7 in common phones. Even today, getting portable devices that support wifi6e is hard and they have already been out about two years. It looks like wifi7 won't help much right now. What makes wifi6e better than wifi6 is all the extra bandwidth the government allowed on 6G radios. Regular wifi6 used to hype up a lot but often didn't beat even older wifi5 because of limits in the 5g bands. Wifi7 is mostly trying to use more radio frequency and pack in more data. If you live somewhere with no other neighbors using wifi and can sit just five inches from your router, it might actually be faster than usual. But I think most companies are very deceptive when they put numbers on boxes to trick customers into thinking bigger numbers always mean better performance.